Platform

Earlier today, I mentioned that the Dems have circulated a draft of their ’08 platform, and that I meant to comment on it if time permitted.

Well, I’ve had a chance to slightly-more-than-skim through it, and I can offer a few thoughts:

On health care and health insurance – I don’t think the Dems are planning to rely on too much in the way of contributions from the health insurance sector this cycle.  Several pages of the document seem focused on grilling health insurers.

There is, at least, one comment in the platform expressing a desire to control health costs, but the focus seems to be on addressing inefficiencies in the system (where there is indeed room for improvement), rather than the real drivers of health care inflation – Americans’ perceived entitlement to the latest and greatest (and generally very expensive) procedures and treatments, and the tendency for medical professionals to treat specific complaints, rather than undertaking thorough diagnosis, and considering the potential efficacy of less-sexy-but-still-effective treatments.  The platform buys into the notion that Americans should have access to the very best health care (and admirable goal), but does nothing about the unspoken question of “who’s going to pay for this”?

(Actually, I should take that back.  Throughout the platform there are promises to not raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000.   Above the magic $250,000 mark, the platform calls on households to pay “a bit more”.)

There are actually quite a few calls for new programs, to bolster the health and welfare of Americans.  They are all admirable goals….but the only spending cut I see mentioned in the platform involves ending our military involvement in Iraq.  I wonder if a Democratic monopoly in Washington would actually be significantly less fiscally irresponsible than the Republican monopoly was, or the lame duck / deadlocked government we have now is.

True, I didn’t expect to see a robust fiscal plan laid out in a platform…but it would be nice if a few more hints of budget-balancing could be seen in the document.

Also on the health care reform section of the platform – I can’t help but notice how many of the abuses (and perceived abuses) the Dems seek to end are targeted towards traditional health insurance providers.   Most health insurance these days comes from employer-provided plans which would likely be relatively exempt from such reforms…and/or have already been subject to such reform through amendments to ERISA.

Missing from that section – reform of ERISA itself.   While ERISA definitely provided some much-needed consumer protections in what was a then-failing pension system in the 1970’s….there are a few loopholes in the law which permit administrators of employee health plans to behave badly with minimal repercussions.   More detail can be found in an earlier post of mine…and it’s something that I’d like to see fixed.

The Social Security plank is disappointing, I think.   While it’s understandable that the Dems would slam corporations for underfunding pension plans, or walking away from promises previously made, statements like:

We recognize that Social Security is not in crisis

smell a bit like an attempt to score political points, rather than paint a constructive plan.  Yes, the platform advocates bolstering Social Security’s financing, and yes “crisis” is in the eye of the beholder…but acknowledgement that acting sooner rather than later would reduce the burden of any fix, and acknowledgement of the even-worse fiscal situation of Medicare would be refreshingly frank from a political party.

Oh well.  Democratic and Republican platforms these days seem to be mostly puff pieces anyway, so my frustration is to be expected.  I imagine this document and the forthcoming GOP platform will only reconfirm my disappointment with both major parties.

Dang, I’ve accumulated quite a bit of material worth commenting on during the craziness of the past few weeks.   Some of the more interesting articles include:

• Redstate referenced an article in the Telegraph entitled “The Great Oil Bubble Has Burst”.  While Redstate seems inclined to play up the influence of off-shore drilling expectations in the recent rationalization of oil prices, the more complete story seems to be the free market coming back into balance.  Yes, the markets seem to reflect expectation of new supplies, and global economic slowing is shifting expectations of demand, and these shifts in turn seem to end the incentive to dance the contango. 
     
  However, I do notice that both articles also fail to touch on expectations of the US Dollar strengthening / Euro weakening impacting dollar-denominated oil futures contracts, as well as China presumably ending its massive stockpiling of diesel fuel for Olympics power-generation.

  It’ll be interesting to see where  the new oil/fuel price equilibrium emerges.  It’s a little odd that I’d ever be happy over gas and heating oil prices locally dropping below $3.90 – a year ago that would have been an unsettling price to think about.  Hopefully planners and venture capitalists will continue to see the market potential of alternative power sources (wind, solar, non-food-based-ethanol) enough to justify further development of such technology.
   

• You may have heard that the Olympics are on. NBC apparently racked up record ratings, which annoys me since it will only support that network’s practice of tainting the games (and its ceremonies) with inane, fluffy chatter.   You’d think that with the advent of digital multicasting, there would at least be some move to provide a commentator-less soundtrack, as well as additional coverage of some of the less-popular (but more interesting) sports.
   
• Tyson Foods drew some flack in Nashville media for one provision in its recently announced 5-year contract at a Shelbyville processing plant – workers will no longer receive Labor Day as a paid day off, instead picking up Eid al-Fitr, the end of the month of Ramadan.  The fuss seems to be focused around the appearance of sacrificing an American holiday for an Islamic one.  
   
  However, not much seems to be made of approximately 60% of staff at the plant being Somali (and presumably Muslim)…and that not much work would be done that day anyway.  It seems like a rather practical approach to maximize plant efficiency while being sensitive to workers’ wishes.   It’s similar to how even the most secular institutions in the U.S. observe Christmas Day.
   
• The Dems reportedly have reached the necessary compromises to draft a platform for the ’08 election season.  I’m hoping to have time to look through it more carefully later, but I can observe now that quickly searching for the word “insurance” and skimming through the results makes me feel oh-so-loved, and causes me to wonder if I should be searching for “bread and circus” as well.
   
• And finally, while I might feel unloved by the Dems due to my association with the “evil” insurance industry, I still can’t help but compliment the Obama camp for seemingly almost mastering the art of media hype.   The current example of this is was the invitation broadcast far and wide for a text message alert when Barack’s veep choice (presumably Bayh) is announced (presumably in the next day or two).

Whew!  And now, it’s time for me to head back into the salt mine….